One upside to mass unemployment

By Fester:

Brandon Friedman at VetVoice is pimping an article he wrote for the Military Times concerning recruit quality for the US Army.  It cratered as soon as it was apparant to the American population that joining the army meant at least one, and usually two tours in Iraq during an eight year enlistment period with Calvinball rules and predictablity to follow.  The marginal recruit of previous years all of a sudden found far better things to do with their time so the new marginal recruit was less educated, in worse shape and in need of more exemptions and waivers:

Dr. Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer,  points out that in 1992 98 percent of recruits had a high school diploma.  By 2004, that number had fallen to 86 percent.  In 2007, only 79 percent of Army recruits had completed high school.  Whereas nearly everyone in the Army had a diploma 15 years earlier, by 2007, fewer than four out five soldiers did.

In terms of maintaining a professional force, the numbers of "conduct" waivers are even more troubling.  For felonies or serious misdemeanors (or three minor misdemeanors), the Army granted entrance waivers to 4.6 percent of its recruits in 2004.  That number had more than doubled to 11 percent at the end of 2007. And in the first half of 2008, the number ballooned to 13 percent.  To put it starkly, this means that one out of every eight Army recruits now has a criminal record.

One upshot of serious unemployment and underemployment for the 18 to 25 year high school graduate population is that military recruiting should be able to improve fairly dramatically as people who had options last year don't have those options any more so the Army looks a whole lot better at the marginal recruit level. 

[/snark]

Comments

[jobseeker]

The flipside/downside is that there are lots of service people coming home to find few jobs available.